Kin
by dee-the-slut
Summary: Ghost and Steve are back in M.M but neither knows how their lives will change when the English band INTENTIONAL stumble drunkenly into town. Natty and Ghost connect on a level that scares them both, angers Steve and causes a heap of complications for all
1. Not another hick town

KIN (this will probably change)  
  
By Dee_The_Slut (Deanne Charles)  
  
Summary: Poppzy Z Brite crossover with one of my originals (Burning Honey). English (kinda) band Intentional are roadtripping/touring in the U.S, stopping at every dysfunctional small town that they pass, but something is drawing Natty to Missing Mile and, yet again, she wants nothing to do with it. Natty has always had a strong psychic ability, an astral link to fate which leads her to people who need her help, but she can't save them all, she can't even save herself. There's something different about Ghost, the delicate angel that she meets. It's as though they are family, but every family has a crisis…or two.  
  
  
  
Disclaimer: I think everybody knows that all of the wonderful things about this story (Ghost, Steve, Missing Mile and it's inhabitants) are born of the wonderfully fevered organ that is the brain of Poppy Z Brite. I do own the other lot though so please don't take them from me (I'm rather attached to Natalie, Eepha and the band). Oh, I don't own any of the music or T.V shows referred to either.  
  
Rating is pg-13 for now but may (is likely to go up pretty soon)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Natty rested her head against the window, wanting to cool her burning, feverish forehead on the cool, clear glass, but the window was grubby and warm and only served to make her head hurt more. She watched the landscape whiz by indifferently, fields of bland, yellow, straw-like plant slipping past, filthy and neglected looking through the smudgy window. She wound the glass down slowly, a breath of dry dusty wind spraying up her nostrils, filling her sinuses with the grainy, abrasive sand of small towns and infinite boredom. The boys were singing loudly around her, spilling vodka and profanity in the van, wrestling in the heap of empty wrappers, half eaten beigals and pop cans, crushing each other against the wreckage of last night's alcohol fuelled revelry.  
  
She didn't know where they were going, didn't really care, she only knew that the next town that they stopped at would offer as little as the last one they stopped at; semiliterate, culturally retarded hicks, teens with more social deformities than money, a general lack of obvious excitement and debauchery. Whenever they left one of these towns, she always took the emptiness and dire want of the voiceless souls that she had met and temporarily loved, cursing them for it after. She smiled, laughing silently to herself as she remembered what she had actually liked about small towns; you could always be sure to find a liquor store with an acne ridden clerk willing to sell alcohol to anybody who showed any kind of interest in them, even if they were too young to actually sell booze to or fuck without fear of conviction. She felt like a whore flirting retarded social rejects for booze but she felt like a whore most of the time and anyway, if you have morals, you're not drunk enough.  
  
Natty definitely wasn't drunk enough, wasn't well enough to really get drunk or get angry about the amount of vodka that the boys were sloshing around the van, around their equipment, over her resting figure. She was too full of dread and nausea to peek into the back of the packed van, to watch the three boys who were now entwined in a heady mixture of sex, vodka and rotting food. She barely had enough willpower to unwind stray, searching fingers from her own as Daniel tried to pull her into the carnal tangle. She waved him away with a slight flick of the wrist and closed her eyes and ears against the van and the long, endlessly yellow fields against the straight, rolling asphalt road that led them towards the cause of the swirling in her head and the wrenching of her stomach. She felt the road sign before she saw it, saw the strobolic images flashing painfully behind her eyes; pain, hurt, suffering, blood.  
  
"Missing mile! We have to stop there!" Just hearing Ben mention the name twisted Natty's innards in a painful knot of horror and sorrow, flaring bright white behind her closed eyelids, shaking her muscles violently in an agitated spasm of nausea and Psi.  
  
"Stop the van!" Ben looked at her with a confused expression but obeyed, he always obeyed and that was half of his appeal, but Natty couldn't think about that, barely had time to haul herself out of the van and onto the heated tarmac before throwing a thick, chunky gush of vomit into the dry sand beside the road. The thick, after-hurl saliva dripped like sour syrup from her thick lips, mixing into a dark paste with the dirty yellow sand, pieces of salted beef and bagel and a hint of mustard adding texture and aroma to the mixture, the nausic marriage of her to this place, this town that she did not want to go to stop at but couldn't avoid. She knew that the twisting in her stomach would never leave her unless she went to Missing Mile SO.C.  
  
She heard the soft thud of boots landing calmly on the road, the steady, measured movements that were unmistakably Andy, the soft, stroking hand on her tense shoulder. The bright white flash made her blink as she hurled another jet of putrid semi-liquid out of her system and onto the dirt, her skin heating uncontrollably as she retched again, Andy's camera snapping as she did.  
  
"It's beautiful. Can I put it on the website?" Natty watched with an apathetic interest as the dust sucked in her gastric juices, sating itself with whatever salvation her garbage filled vomit could bring, swallowing her like an eager lover. She shrugged.  
  
"Sure. Whatever!" Andy softly curled his finger in the tight, grainy knots of hair at the top of her neck as she leaned forward, resting her forehead on a dry patch of puke-free sand, groaning to herself and hooking his little finger with her own. He couldn't hear her thoughts, but he'd seen this many times before, the nausea, the headaches, the denial of even the most hedonistic of pleasures.  
  
He didn't know much about Psi or Fate or The Powers That Be (as Natty and just about all Angel fans called it), but he could see by the plastic gloss of her eyes and the absent twitching of her body that some kind of message was getting through to her finely tuned radar. She hadn't been set a "mission" since they'd hit the road and he could tell by the look of horror and pleading on her face that she was not yet ready to get back into the occupation of soul saving. Natty wasn't ready to save anybody's soul, she wasn't even sure if she still had one or if she ever did. How the hell was she supposed to help? Her intestines twisted and knotted, her stomach ripped, her kidneys pumped foul poisons back into her blood; her organs were ganging up against her, forcing her towards the next lost soul. She hoped that this person, whoever they were, was worth it.  
  
"I'm sure he will be!" Natty hadn't meant to transmit the thought to Andros, but was glad that he was there with her, that they were all there to see her through this and keep her from throwing herself in front of the next sixteen wheeler that she saw. She just smiled dryly, lifting her head from the ground and wiping tiny sediments of rock and possibly bone from her forehead, slightly rubbing the small dents and imprints in her soft flesh made by the little stones. "What makes you think that it's a he?" Andy pulled her to her feet, a tight smile lightening his features and reddening his glossy lips.  
  
"It always is!"  
  
  
  
Ghost settled his head on Steve's muscular thigh, the long legs loosening beneath his own relaxed neck, the flesh melting into him like warm syrup and summer kisses, liquid sun and rose musk. The sun dripped gold over them both and Ghost could taste the sunny beads flow onto his lips, over his tongue, slipping down his throat, tracing a path of luscious light through his passages and filling his empty stomach with saccharine warmth. A faint, white sea of dandelion spores floated airily on a soft breeze, bobbing on the whispering wind as though dangling form delicate, invisible strings twisted around the nimble finger of wood sprites and the specters of trees. The wispy, delicate stars of the dandelions danced easily and gracefully to the lazy beating of the sun, eagerly whispering the wishes of the children that had held them in clammy, hope filled palms and breathed on them with chocolate heavy breath. Most adults thought that it was just an old myth. They no longer believed that a wish breathed on a dandelion would float on the wind like a airborne message and meet someone, something, that could fulfill it.  
  
Ghost still believed. He knew the truth about wishes and the natural magic of childhood; his grandmother had told him. He remembered the day; he was sitting on the dry cracked porch of her house, the heavy smell of herbs and lotions thickening the otherwise dry and lifeless air with rich, natural perfume. He had caught the dandelion star in his hand, eyeing it with awe, believing that he had caught a caught a tiny piece of Heaven, believing the golden haired, chubby faced child that he could see within it's fragile spores to be an angel, one of God's elite, Gabriel or Michael. That face had been smiling. They hadn't all been since.  
  
His Grandmother had come to sit beside him as he listened to words of his hopeful angel, as he allowed tears to drip from his quivering eyes. She had smelled like the earth and nature and confident history, and Ghost never felt scared when she was near, was never afraid to walk bare footed through the woods or sing to the clouds and the wind and the bark of the trees. She had told him to be careful with the wish, that what he held in his hand was the hope of all children and the last remnant of man's natural magic that most would ever experience. He had let it fly on the wind with a new confidence in the power of people and a wish of his own gently hugging that of the other child. He had wanted someone, someone that would always be a part of his soul, someone who would make him part of theirs.  
  
Steve shifted beneath him. Ghost could hear the voices of the new children, the new magicians, could hear their laughs, their sobs, their frightened whispers as he held his hand in the air, allowing them to flutter around hid up stretched fingers, brushing his padded tips like the silken locks of dirty haired children. He caught one gently in his palm, careful not to crush the downy tuft of the fragile wish that it carried deep within its wispy branches. I wish the pain would go away. That's what the voice told him, the voice of the little girl with the thin wrists and the shaky breath, the girl with the old floral dress and they dying lungs. He said his own wish out loud, the original wish of his childhood. It wasn't his wish anymore, that had been fulfilled, but somehow silently breathing the words made everything okay, reminded him of the magic and his Grandmother and that having your wishes come tru was a good thing although grieving for the child and loss of childhood that the voice expressed. The magic wasn't his, it wasn't his powewre, he wasn't a child anymore. His magic was something that could be classed as neither a blessing or a curse, it was just something that he had lived with for a long time. Steve didn't understand it, couldn't understand. Nobody could understand.A single tear crawled from Ghost's eye as he released the wish back onto the wind, smiling because he too hoped that the girl's wish would come true, crying because he knew that it would. Perhaps he wanted his to come true too. Maybe he was being greedy and really did want another person in his life with whom he could share his soul, another person who could reach the cracks that Steve couldn't. He'd never give up Steve's friendship but maybe he needed two soul mates, not just one. But the magic wasn't his anymore, he was no longer a child. He shivered and Steve instinctively wrapped him up with his strong arms despite the obvious heat. Neither of them knew that the Ghost's wish was already being fulfilled or that it had something to do with the noisy van now approaching their town. 


	2. clarity

The air was dry and still, the sun pounded mercilessly on the gravel and the tarmac, softening the surface to a sticky, semi-liquid goop that stuck to her boots. The wind had stopped, all sounds had stopped, nothing stirred. The sky bowed towards the ground, heavy and burdened, but not a cloud was visible. The endless fields of yellow crop stood still, as though in hiding, holding their breath like the frightened children of Jews in Nazi Germany, hiding from the human monsters that had come to get them. Nothing moved, nature had stopped, but her hair whipped and flapped around her, caught in a self created wind, a silent hurricane which followed her alone. She stood unflinching, her wild, raven hair licking like the leathered tongues of reanimated corpses, thick, black, impenetrable, filled with an unnatural life.  
  
She was not alone. The figure beside her shifted, nervously backing away from her whipping hair. The wind did not like this figure, this weak soul, this weak soul with the face of the other but flaming, red hair.  
  
"I don't think they came this way." The raven haired one ignored her twin, maintaining her reaching gaze down the empty road, her hair flying in frenzy around her, occasionally flicking into the sister's eye, a punishment for her weakness. The sister held her arms up against the possessed hair, a moment of fear and sorrow stopping her heart and filling her eyes with salty tears, tears that the raven haired one had never experienced. 'Listen, Clarry, there's nothing out here but hick towns and retards. Can't we go back?" Clarity turned her head, looking for something on the ground, a look of sudden knowledge and understanding beaming from her eyes but failing to alter her stone set features. Her eyes shone as though she had just heard a hushed whisper on the wind, a betrayed secret that she was not supposed to hear. She had heard it.  
  
She didn't look at her sister, had forgotten that she was even there, didn't care that she was. Clarity was looking for something else, something infinitely more important. She found it. A patch. A moisture darkened patch of sand told her what she wanted to know, what she already knew. 'They're there, in that town.' She glanced at the sign, then back at the vomit. ' She's reached already! It just a matter of time now.' She allowed herself a smile, a smile that shook her red haired twin to her core, a smile without life, without passion, without humanity. Chastity feared her sister, and that's just the way that Clarity liked it.  
  
"How do you kn…" the hate filled glance from Clarity was enough to freeze the words in Chastity's throat, her tongue becoming as useless as a spare icicle in Antarctica. Clarity stalked back to the car, her heavy boots only lightly hitting the floor, her hair now hanging straight down her back and over her slender shoulders. Chastity shuddered. All of her shivers were caused by her twin's unnatural existence . The weightlessness, the winds, the coldness, as much as she hated to admit it, Chastity had always known that her sister had been born different, but what the difference was scared her out of further curiosity. She started as Clarity slammed the car door shut and leaned back in her seat in an almost restful position; eyes closed, breathing slow and easy.  
  
'Get in the car!' Chastity hesitated, shuddering again as her sister smiled at her, having probably read her mind. The car started up, the engine revved, Chastity climbed in. The road spread open before them, laying on it's back like an eager lover, waiting for Clarity's orders. As the car moved, Chastity fought back a tear. This was going to be bad, even she knew that, and she wasn't the psychic one.  
  
  
  
  
  
Andros was the first one out of the van, hopping out onto the street before the road stopped beneath the slowly rolling wheels, filled with the excitement and optimism that only a small town could bring. The camera whirred at least five times before his feet hit the gravel, catching the image of a group of old men playing checkers with what seemed to be bottle caps. He, leaned against the now stationary van, letting the vibrations of the still running engine travel through him as he snapped another shot, one of the old men jumping from his seat, the apparent victor of the match. Andros fantasised that one of those old men looked like his own grandpa, hell, one of them could be his grandpa for all that he knew. It wasn't as though he'd ever knew the man. He was always like then when they reached somewhere new, loosing himself in the quirks and nuances of desperate people who could hide their longing from others but not from Andy's lens…and not from Natty.  
  
As usual, Natalie was the last of the five to climb out the vehicle, holding a heavy arm up to shield her eyes from the sun even though it was not shining on her. She didn't like to look at people in places like this, she didn't want to see what they were thinking. Of course she could already hear the silent pleading of their minds but she thought it best not to attach faces to these voices, best not to get involved. It was none of her business. Well, it was, that was her job, but she didn't want it, not full time, anyway. If she couldn't see their faces, she couldn't pity them, couldn't mourn for them, couldn't love them…wouldn't think twice when she left them.  
  
'How long are we gonna be in this shithole for?' She dug her heel into the sand, twisting and grinding the shell of an insect. She didn't know what insect it was. She'd never cared much about insects. She'd never cared much about humans. It was all the same to her, all part of the job  
  
'I want to live here' Andy had slipped into dream mode again, they could all see it, could all hear it in the softened lilt of his herb tinted voice, y the way that he allowed his hair to hang over his face, by the way that he stroked the camera absently. Daniel hugged his lover tightly from behind, pulling in the scent of the other boy's neck, the thick smell of heat and dust filling his senses and diffusing into his blood. The old men glanced at them momentarily, taking in this display with a slight shrug of the shoulders. Just another couple of long haired faggots, no danger here. That's what their minds said to Natty (who was more than relieved to not to have to fight off another mob of queer-bashers).  
  
'You say that everywhere we go! You want to live everywhere!' Daniel laughed, tousling Andy's hair playfully, leaving his dark haired lover leaning against the silent, cooling van. It was true, he never liked to leave a place. He wasn't like his carefree boyfriend, he wanted roots, had never had them before. However, this place seemed rather familiar but not in a de ja vu way. He didn't feel as though he personally belonged here, he did not imagine any bond between himself and these houses with the cracked, wooden porches and overgrown gardens. No. This wasn't his home, emotion…it was Natty. Missing Mile North Carolina had been waiting for Natty and she could feel it. The recognition of some familiar sense was emanating from her and she was sending it loud and clear to Andy. This was her home. A part of her had been in this town for a long time and she was very close to finding it.  
  
They wandered through the streets aimlessly for a while, getting a feel for the place, sizing it up, plotting the best way to make their presence felt. Daniel and Andros chatted lightly, Daniel occasionally swinging his blonde hair down his back and laughing lightly, clutching loosely yet protectively to his boyfriend's arm, Andros throwing concerned glances over his shoulder back at Natty. A hand slipped into her own and squeezed. She didn't need to look up, didn't need to throw her mind into his to recognise the warm, innocent blood that eased through Eepha's thin, delicate veins. She had not spoken to Eepha all day, didn't need to ever talk to him, they were linked. She gave Andros her thoughts but Eepha felt them instinctively, she was his designated saviour and he needed one. Eepha had a talent for getting himself into trouble, albeit through no fault of his own. Natty had saved his life a few times and he still felt that had to repay the favour, although she believed that he already had.  
  
Ben could see by the look on Natty's face that she had just about had all she could take of their concern, so had he. He didn't like Natty when she was all dark and brrod, actually, she didn't like him, he was sure of it. No matter what he said, what he tried, he could never make the pain stop, he could never know what to do, that wasn't his job.  
  
'Liquor!' Natty smiled, her face momentarily beaming, her eyes sparkling like the pieces of broken glass from an expensive, antique decanter.  
  
'Booze, yes, we must find the booze!' She let Eepha's hand drop absently, flinging herself into Ben's arms, which opened reflexively as she lunged at him.  
  
'You always know just what to say!' Ben grinned, shaking his head slightly, rubbing Natty's back, lightly tugging on her bra strap. He knew that this was Natty's way of telling that she had heard his thoughts and that none of it was true. 'We can't stay in this fucking town if we can't find any drink!' The vodka from the last town had finished in the van and Natty hadn't had a drop, had needed to keep a clear head as it became clear that Missing Mile was her new mission. Now that she knew, the real work would have to wait until she was sufficiently inebriated, or at least drunk enough to care.  
  
'It's your turn, Ben!' Somehow, according to Daniel, it was always Ben's turn the buy the drink, especially as it was actually his. 'Anyway, you look older than the rest of us!' Daniel giggled at the look on Ben's face, the moment of hatred followed by the tiny, infinitely forgiving smirk. 'I'll make it up to you!' Daniel's eyelashes seemed to grow at least an inch as he fluttered them at Ben, his lips pouting seductively, still clutching his lover's arm. Ben grinned smugly, nodding his head. Persuaded.  
  
'Fine, but you owe me big! You owe me…' the pause carried enough suggestion to make them all grin. 'very big.' Natty chuckled to herself. Whether they tried or not, her band's presence was always going to be felt. She just hoped that it was by the right people. 


	3. Not all accidents are really accidental

Somehow Natty always managed to find blue neon signs in every town city or general hole that they landed in, as though the florescence reacted with something in her blood, something seedy and ravenous in some kind of sordid chemical reaction. At that moment, she thought it was just the $6 vodka in her system leading her to a new source of inebriation; like calls to like, she was sure that somebody had told her that but couldn't remember who. Whatever it was that had called to her, Natty had managed to find what was possibly the only club in Missing Mile North Carolina and, although it was not yet opening time, The Sacred Yew had Burning Honey written all over it. Daniel nudged Ben towards the door, it was his turn again and this time Ben was drunk enough to truly believe that it was. They all giggled and then fell silent as Ben's knock was followed by tumbling noises within, the sound of cursing and the creaking of the door handle.  
  
Kinsey Hummingbird just wanted a quiet life. His days were constant, predictable, reliable; that's how he liked it. He'd always wanted to own a club for the young people in Missing Mile and now, he had done so for years; every goth kid from as far as Rayleigh knew Kinsey, the man at the Yew with the feather in his hair. Yet owning the only club in Missing Mile was the one thing that caused disruption in Kinsey's plans for calm and quiet; every trouble that blew through this town ended up buying a couple of beers at his bar first. Something told him that the knock on his back door so early in the afternoon was going to be just another example of this. Banging down he box beers that he was carrying, cursing as he knocked his angular knee against the bar, he trudged to open the door, hoping against hope that it was just the postmen with a nice package for him. The five kids staring up at him as he pulled the door and stood on the step were not what he was expecting. Kinsey had long grown used to expecting vampires and malevolent forces to darken the boards of his bar but these kids seemed to hold no malice in their out-of-town faces. 'Look, kids, we're not open yet, the gig's not until tonight!' The girl looked up at this, the negro girl with the black eyes. Her expressionless features troubled him, and Kinsey felt that he wouldn't be able to stand being under her gaze for long,. 'Gig?' Somehow the British accent was not at all a surprise to Kinsey and this only served to trouble him more. 'Yeah, if you're here about the Lost Souls? Gig, then you're about six hours too early.' They all stared at each other for a while, except for the brown girl who just stood and stared at Kinsey, a sudden smile appearing almost violently on her face. These weren't the usual goth kids that he was used to seeing in his club, or the out-of-towners that liked to follow Lost Souls? Around as though they held all of life's answers. Somehow he got the idea that these kids were just an accident, no calculated evil force, just lost children. The girl stood forward, and her eyes softened and Kinsey could see that she could be no older than 19, just a baby. Yet she seemed to be the commander of this unlikey crew of thin white boys. 'We'd like to play here, if you need a support act.' Kinsey shifted and stared intently at the girl, more confident now that her eyes had loosened their intensity. It was true, he could do with a support act but he wasn't sure. It was easy to please the local bands, all they ever asked for was beer and rehearsal space, The Yew wasn't really a huge money making machine. 'You don't need to pay us much, just gas money and booze, nothing more.' He had to laugh at her boldness, somehow kid seemed a bad word for this one. 'Are you old enough to drink booze? I don't wanna lose my licence!' She smiled again, a side smile, not really at Kinsey but he understood. 'I'm old enough in England' is all she said before Kinsey led them into the bar. 


	4. Like calls to Like

A/N: This is taking forever but I am now getting interested in the story again myself. I may add a few scenes before this one to show what Ghost is normally like and how Clarity's presence is affecting Natty too. Due to the amazingly annoying change in keyboards buttons recently, I now have to go back and get rid of all the bloody Euro signs in the first chapters. God, I hate computers.

Chapter 4: Like calls to Like

Steve toyed with the guitar strings idly, only dimly aware of the choppy riff that his fingers drew out of the tired guitar. It had taken him weeks to learn it, weeks of hand cramps, sleepless nights, the skin of his fingers splitting with resistance as he drove them into the tight, steel strings hour after hour. It had been all he wanted, to learn this one piece, it gave him something to do, something to aim for, something to keep him from giving up. It had taken him weeks to learn but now it was easy, so mechanical. He could probably play it in his sleep, could probably play them all. If he got a new one, he could probably play that too within not too long. He could play it now but that didn't make him feel better at all, it was all the same.

He laid the guitar down and reached for his bottle of warm beer. Even the booze was the same now, always the same. Tonight would be no different: a couple of Buds here, at the house, a few Natty Bohos at the Yew before the show, about half a bottle of Jack Daniels after show and a mutedly hellish hangover tomorrow. He sighed, his breath smelling like today's beer, this morning's breakfast and last night's Jack Daniels. It was always the same.

And that was just it, wasn't it? All of the songs now played at the same, lazy rhythm, all of the notes fell on the same uninspired ears. The same town. The same people. No passion, no drama, nada. All Steve had was a belly full of booze and a head full of nothing. And Ghost.

Steve rapped gently on Ghost's bedroom door, already halfway into the room, still clutching the warm beer that he would force himself to drink at some point. Ghost was knelt on his bed, stretching up against the wall, a chunky, bright pink pen in his hand, scrawling something new in the wild mess of song lyrics and quotations that he had had created over the years, his loose, white tee-shirt lifting so that Steve could see the small of his back, the soft kidney dimples that Steve had only ever noticed before on girls. All Steve had was Ghost, and Ghost would follow him anywhere.

Ghost didn't turn around when his friend entered the room, didn't stop his writing to smile at Steve as he usually would, didn't beam with excitement at the new snippet of wisdom that he had chosen to adorn his wall with or had chosen him. Instead, he held the pen fast in his fist like a child and continued to write his pink sentence slowly and precisely.

When they were kids, Ghost had complained that he only had a single black pen to write poetry on his wall with, one black pen for every thought in his head, no matter what it was. He hadn't really been complaining, Ghost never really complained about anything, but Steve had seen into those eyes, those clear, revealing eyes and had known that Ghost's world was not and should not be limited to black and white, that Ghost's world was pregnant with brilliant and strange colours, hues that had tastes and smells and emotions too, colours that were filled with life and bursting with new, even more vital colours. Steve had sold four of his favourite baseball cards to a boy in the 8th grade, Jimmy Tozer, so that he could buy a pack of bright, chunky pens, usually given to the smallest of children, for Ghost. He had left them underneath Ghost's pillow for him to find. He never said a word about it, never took the credit, and Ghost knew enough to never mention it either, to never say thanks. And now neither of them ever spoke about how a new packet of pens always appears underneath Ghost's pillow every year on the same day.

Steve looked up at the wall, at the random lyrics and quotations stretching themselves across the surface and around each other like climbing vines around forgotten garden ornaments. The new one seemed to sit in a gap in the centre of an old collection of words, as though everything on the wall had been fashioned around this one space, as though since he was a child, Ghost and the wall itself had been waiting for this one sentence.

_Like calls to Like,_

_And I am calling to you._

The words appeared more straight and rigid than Ghost's normal script. Gone were the extravagant loops of the y's, the flowers over the i's, the care free, chaos that was Ghost. If Steve hadn't seen Ghost writing this with his own eyes, hadn't watched the delicate hand trace every letter carefully almost with his whole body, he would have sworn that is was written by somebody else.

'Is that part of a new song?' Ghost's body seemed to recoil at the sound of Steve's voice, seemed to shrink with disgust or frustration at the idea of being interrupted whilst in the middle of something sacred. Steve had never seen this is Ghost before, it had never been in Ghost before but somehow, Steve knew to fear it. Whatever it was, Ghost seemed to shake it out of himself. His eyes almost crossed and when they turned to land on Steve, a look of pure fright, intrigue and confusion shone dully inside. He stammered, trying to speak, something working quickly in his brain that Steve probably would not understand.

'No, It was, erm, just something someone told me once,' he hesitated, a look of utter confusion and disturbance on his face, 'but I can't remember who.' He trailed, wandering off inside the expansive forest of his memories, both past and future, turning them over one by one in search of something that he was sure must be there. Steve could see it in his eyes, could see him searching under every leaf and twig of his life, under years or moss and growth. Steve sat down on the bed, Ghost still kneeling, looking off into a distance that was within rather than without. Steve rested the beer on the bedside table, clearing a space amongst the random pieces of paper and coloured stones and well-thumbed books.

'You know, I think she's angry with us.' Ghost looked down at Steve as though only just noticing him in the room.

'You can feel her too?' Ghost sat himself heavily next to Steve, relief and confusion still troubling his brow. 'I can feel her coming, here, but I don't...' Steve grabbed his hand.

'The T-bird. I think the car is angry with us.' Ghost sighed and slid himself off of the bed, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his head in his hands, his pale hair curtaining his face completely. Steve didn't know what to do. Perhaps he should go down there, squeeze Ghost, tell him that he understood and that everything would be fine. Perhaps that's what he wanted to do but he didn't move except to reach out and pick up the warm bottle of Bud from the table and sip it.

'I mean, we haven't taken her anywhere, not since we resurrected her. I think it's time...' He looked down at Ghost, trying to gauge a reaction, expecting a tired smile, a little nod of agreement. But the little face eyes didn't appear, the face didn't show itself, the shoulders didn't move. 'There's this town, in Mexico...' The sentence never ended. Ghost shot off of the floor at almost warp speed, his eyes blazing with fury that Steve had never witnessed before, rage that surely could not have come from inside of Ghost alone. Ghost stood above Steve, his face flashing with emotion, mostly hatred, as he looked down at his friend, his breathing harsh and faltering.

'I'm not going anywhere, you can't make me.' Steve didn't move. He had faced vampires, ghosts, all manner of strange things that most people didn't even know existed or at least pretended not to, but nothing had scared him as much as the look of desperate contempt in the eyes of his peaceful Ghost. He wasn't scared for himself, but scared for his friend, scared that something had got to him and that he, Steve, was powerless to stop it.

'We'll come back, we just need to get out for a while Ghost. What's there kept here so long?' Ghost seemed to shiver involuntarily as he glared with such contempt and desperation that Ghost could never create.

'Fuck off, Steve! You're not taking me away from my family because you've fucked up your own life here, because everyone, just everyone knows you're a fucking loser!' There it was. There was the proof that Steve needed, the proof that Ghost hadn't turned on him at all, the proof that something unnatural, something supernatural was happening or about to happen in Missing Mile and that he. Steve, had to get Ghost away from here before it took him over. Ghost threw himself back onto the floor, sobbing silently, his shoulders gently shaking. He looked up at Steve with wide, teary eyes, the eyes of the boy that Steve knew and loved, eyes without the cloudy film of hate.

'I don't know what's happening to me, Steve. Take me away from here, tonight, before the gig, before It happens.'

'We can do the gig, it'll be fine. Then we'll leave right away, I promise.'

Ghost hugged his knees.

'Just take me away, Steve.' Steve's beer was now empty and how he wished he had another, no matter how warm and thick.

'There's this town. In Mexico.'

Chastity dragged her case up the stairs, wondering just how many bugs she had already killed deep within the crumb and dust thick, green carpet. The steps beneath felt harsh and dry, the kind of neglect and decay that no amount of carpet laying can ever truly disguise. She hesitated, reaching out her hand to lean on the dusty banister, her breath coming in short breaths as she set heavy case down. The sound of thudding boots alerted her to somebody coming up the stairs and the case was lifted again and taken away ahead of her. Chastity didn't need to look up to know that it was her sister, the sudden chill and cracking of the air was evidence enough. She continued up the stairs, vaguely aware of how little her twin struggled with the loaded case that she herself had been trying to drag up the stairs for the last ten minutes.

The room door was open when Chastity got there and it was no more inviting than the rest of the house. 'Couldn't we have just gone to Rayleigh? There's a real motel there.' She lay on the double bed next to her sister who was sat silently, elbows resting on knees, her body not even moving to breathe, it seemed. 'Do you reckon that we're the first guests at this B 'n' B ever?' Clarity remained silent, not even turning to acknowledge her twin's presence in the room; Chastity wondered if her sister's soul was actually still in the body or if it had flown away somewhere else for a while leaving this motionless, quiet shell. Perhaps the true soul of her sister had died years ago and this...this...

'What if they're not there, at this club?' She pushed the previous thought out of her head; you could never be too careful around Clarity, she knew things. Clarity tilted her head and glanced at her shaking twin, a glazed, distant look plastered on her face that shook Charity more than the usual torrent of rage would have.

'They'll be there, I can feel it. Like calls to like, we all know that!' And at that moment, as Clarity rested her old gun on the bedside table, her sister thought again that maybe they were no longer sisters at all, that this...this...monster that shared her face, was simply something else.


End file.
